Controlling traders from manipulating electronic trading markets

ABSTRACT

Systems and methods are provided to control gaming in electronic trading markets. These systems and methods alleviate the problem of a seller or buyer trying to act on a trader&#39;s original bid or offer only to trade at an unfavorable level after the trader changes the bid or offer. A pricing method suspends trading for a period of time if a price difference between two bids or offers by the same trader is too great. A timing method prevents a trader from canceling or replacing a bid or offer for a period of time. These methods provide a more fair and efficient way of executing electronic trades.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of co-pending U.S. patent applicationSer. No. 12/031,843, filed Feb. 15, 2008, which is a divisional of U.S.patent application Ser. No. 09/851,848, filed May 9, 2001 now U.S. Pat.No. 7,392,217, which is hereby incorporated herein by reference.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

This invention relates to electronic trading markets. More particularly,this invention relates to ways to control the extent to which traderscan manipulate electronic trading markets.

As electronic trading becomes more popular, there is an increasing needto control the extent to which traders can manipulate and abuseelectronic trading markets. Currently, the trading of fixed-incomesecurities, such as United States Treasuries, United Kingdom Gilts,European Government Bonds, and Emerging Market debts, and non-fixedincome securities, such as stocks, is possible through electronictrading systems.

In one method of electronic trading, bids and offers are submitted bytraders to a trading system. A bid indicates a desire to buy while anoffer indicates a desire to sell. These bids and offers are thendisplayed by the trading system to other traders. The other traders mayrespond to these bids and offers by submitting sell (or hit) or buy (orlift or take) commands to the trading system. Once a bid or offer hasbeen responded to by a sell or buy command, a trade has been executed.

Electronic trading can be conducted over any suitable communicationsystem. For example, networked computers can be used to implement atrading system. Traders can submit bid, offer, hit, or lift commands viaany suitable input device, such as a mouse, keyboard, or any othersuitable device.

Electronic timers are sometimes used in electronic trading systems. Incertain systems, a “trade-state” timer may be used to provide a periodof exclusivity for two traders (called “current workers”) who are“working-up” a trade—i.e., adding size to a pending series of trades.This trade-state timer may be set to a predetermined time period. Forexample, for U.S. Treasuries, the trade-state timer may be set to twelveseconds. During a work-up trade, the current workers may have a right offirst refusal to trade at a certain level. A current worker may submit abid or an offer anytime during this trade state. However, during thisperiod, no other trader may submit a bid or offer, or respond with asell or buy command.

In some systems, “bid-offer” timers may be used to prevent traders fromprematurely canceling bids and offers entered by the traders. The timersmay give other traders an opportunity to respond to the bids and offersbefore they can be cancelled by the traders that submitted them. Thetimers may be set to a predetermined period. For example, in U.S.Treasuries, the bid-offer timer may be preferably set to four seconds.The bid-offer timer may begin when a trader has submitted a bid or offerto the trading system.

When these timers are used together in an electronic trading system, abid-offer timer may begin when a current worker submits a bid or offerduring a work-up trade. The submission of the bid or offer may be timedso that the bid-offer timer expires just prior to the time that thetrade-state timer expires. Immediately upon expiration of thetrade-state timer, the former current worker may then replace thecurrent bid or offer with a lower bid or offer. At the same time,another trader may submit a sell or buy command in response to thecurrent worker's first bid or offer. Since the current worker hasreplaced the first bid or offer, the new trader may unintentionally endup selling or buying at a different level than was expected. Bycanceling the earlier bid or offer and submitting a new bid or offer inorder to deceive the new trader, the current worker is said to be“gaming” the market.

Many current trading markets allow traders to “game” the market. Asexplained above, one form of gaming is done by submitting a bid or offerto the market only to quickly replace it with a new bid or offer. Thiscan be accomplished by manipulating the market timers.

The bids or offers may be any trade type. These may include all-or-none(AON), limit order (LMT), market order (MKT), market-if-touched (MIT),stop-order (STP), etc. More common in gaming is submitting a marketorder as a first bid or offer and then canceling and replacing themarket order with a limit order. A market order buys or sells at thecurrent trading price while a limit order buys or sells at a statedprice or better off the current market.

In view of the foregoing, it would be desirable to provide systems andmethods for controlling a trader's ability to manipulate electronictrading markets.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

It is an object of this invention to provide systems and methods forcontrolling a trader's ability to manipulate electronic trading markets.

For background purposes only, a trading interface for an electronictrading system that may be used in accordance with the present inventionis illustrated in Kirwin et al. U.S. patent application Ser. No.09/745,651, filed Dec. 22, 2000, which is hereby incorporated byreference herein in its entirety.

In accordance with this invention, a variety of approaches to controlgaming during electronic trading may be used. One approach compares aprice difference between two bids or offers. A second approachmanipulates the bid-offer and trade-state timers.

More particularly, the price approach may compare the prices of the newand old bids or offers by a trader upon receiving a request to replace abid or offer. If the change in price is greater than some predeterminedvalue set by the trading system, the trading system may only permit thebid or offer to be replaced by first entering a “cooling off” period.During this cooling off period, any attempt to sell or buy in responseto the bid or offer may be suspended. In this way, a new trader has anopportunity to see the price change before submitting a sell or buycommand. As an alternative, if the change in price is too great, the newbid or offer may be automatically removed from the market.

The time approach links the timeout of the bid-offer timer to the end ofthe trade-state timer, rather than the time when a bid or offer wassubmitted. In this approach, the bid-offer timer may be programmed tocount down upon completion of the trade-state timer if a current workersubmitted a bid or offer during the trade state. During this time, a newtrader (seller or buyer) may respond to the bid or offer, and thecurrent worker cannot cancel or replace the bid or offer during thetrade-state timer or during the bid-offer timer.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The above and other objects and advantages of the invention will beapparent upon consideration of the following detailed description, takenin conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which like referencecharacters refer to like parts throughout, and in which:

FIG. 1 is a hardware implementation of an exemplary embodiment of anelectronic trading system in accordance with the present invention;

FIG. 2 illustrates a detached trading view of a market cell containing abid in accordance with the present invention;

FIG. 3 illustrates a detached trading view of a market cell when atrader has gamed the market in trading systems prior to the presentinvention;

FIG. 4 illustrates a detached trading view of a market cell when aseller responds to a bid in accordance with the present invention;

FIG. 5 is a flow diagram of an exemplary embodiment of a price approachin accordance with the present invention; and

FIG. 6 is a flow diagram of an exemplary embodiment of a timing approachin accordance with the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

The present invention provides systems and methods for controllinggaming in electronic trading systems. One approach involves detecting achange in price between two bids or offers by the same trader andsuspending trading for a predetermined amount of time if the pricedifference is too large, or removing the new bid or offer from thetrading system. Another approach involves preventing a trader fromcanceling or replacing a bid or offer for a predetermined amount of timeby linking the timers associated with entry and modifications of bid,offer, sell, and buy commands.

FIG. 1 illustrates one embodiment of an electronic trading system 10according to the present invention. As shown, system 10 may include oneor more user computers 12, each of which may include a mouse 22, thatare connected by one or more communication links 14 and a computernetwork 16 to a trading server 18.

In system 10, trading server 18 may be a processor, a computer, a dataprocessing device, or any other suitable server. User computer 12 may bea computer, processor, personal computer, computer terminal, personaldigital assistant, a combination of such devices, or any other suitabledata processing device. Mouse 22 may be any suitable pointing devicecapable of receiving user input. Computer network 16 may be any suitablenetwork, including the Internet, an intranet, a wide area network (WAN),a local area network (LAN), a wireless network, a digital subscriberline (DSL) network, a frame relay network, an asynchronous transfer modenetwork (ATM), a virtual private network (VPN), etc. Communication links14 may be any suitable communication links for communicating databetween user computers 12 and trading server 18, such as network links,dial-up links, wireless links, hard-wired links, etc.

All trading interactions between user computers 12 preferably occur viacomputer network 16, trading server 18, and communication links 14.Traders at user computers 12 may conduct trading transactions using mice22, keyboards, or any other suitable devices.

FIGS. 2-4 illustrate market cells that may be displayed on a usercomputer 12 in accordance with the present invention. A market cell mayinclude indications of the item to be traded, pending bids and/or offersfor the item, the last trading price, and a field for entering tradecommands. For ease of description, FIGS. 2-4 will be described in termsof bids although the same applies for offers as well.

FIG. 2 illustrates a detached trading view of a market cell 50containing a market order bid entered by a trader for an item. As shown,a symbol 52 for the item to be traded (e.g., usg-5y) may be indicated.As also shown, the trader may have entered a market order bid 56 havinga price of 98.21 for $10 million in 5 year bonds as well as a limitorder bid 58 having a price of 98.14 for the same amount. The lasttrading price 60 for the item (e.g., 98.222) may also be indicated.“Command Line” 64 may be used by a trader to enter a bid, offer, sell,buy, cancel, or replace command, or any other suitable command. Thesecommands may be entered using text, using dedicated buttons, or usingany other suitable approach to execute trade commands.

FIG. 3 illustrates a detaching trading view of market cell 100 after atrader has gamed the market. Using the existing electronic tradingsystem, a trader can manipulate the timers to replace market order bid56 in FIG. 2 with the limit order bid 102 (bid 58 in FIG. 2) having aprice of 98.15. Unaware of this change, a seller thinks he or she isresponding to the 98.21 bid when he or she is actually responding to the98.15 bid. The new price is indicated in last price column 106.

FIG. 4 illustrates a detached trading view of a market cell 150 when atrader tries to cancel or replace bid 56 prior to a seller responding tothe bid. Under the present invention, a trader who tries to cancel orreplace a bid will either be prevented from changing the bid for apredetermined time period or trading for the item will be suspended,giving a potential seller notice of the new bid.

If a bid cannot be canceled for a predetermined time period, a sellermay hit the bid as indicated by indicator 152. As shown, the seller hassold $10 million of usg-5Y at a price of 98.21. The new trading price isreflected in the last price column 156.

FIG. 5 is a flow diagram of a price approach to prevent gaming inaccordance with the present invention. Process 200 begins at step 202with one or more bids or offers already entered in the trading system. Abid or offer can be a market order, a limit order, any other type oforder, or any combination of orders. At step 204, the trading system mayreceive a request to cancel or replace a bid or offer. Next, at step206, the trading system may determine whether the trader has more thanone order for the same item.

If the trader has more than one order, the trading system takes steps toprevent possible gaming. At step 208, the trading system cancels thefirst bid or offer and replaces it with the second bid or offer. Next,at step 210, the trading system compares the price of the canceled bidor offer with the new bid or offer. If the price change in the bids oroffers is greater than some delta (e.g., 1/32nd, or any other suitableprice difference), process 200 moves to step 212 where a cooling offperiod timer starts. During this cooling off period, if the tradingsystem receives a request to sell or buy at step 216, the sell or buyorder is suspended at step 218 to give the seller or buyer notice of achange in bid or offer price.

After suspending the sell or buy order, or if the trading system has notreceived a request to sell or buy, process 200 checks whether thecooling period has ended at step 220 and if not, process 200 moves backto step 216. The cooling off period may last any suitable amount of time(e.g., 2 seconds). If the cooling period has ended at step 220, the newbid or offer is updated on the trading system and a seller or buyer canrespond with a hit or lift at step 222. Once a hit or lift is received,a trade occurs and process 200 ends at step 224.

If the price change in bids or offers at step 210 is not greater thanthe predetermined delta, process 200 moves to step 226 where the tradingsystem checks for a request to sell or buy. If there is a request tosell or buy (i.e., a seller or buyer responds with a hit or liftresponse) at step 228, then a trade occurs and process 200 ends at step230. Process 200 may also end at step 230 immediately after step 226 ifthere is no request to sell or buy.

If the trading system determines that a user does not have more than onebid or offer for the same item at step 206, process 200 cancels the bidor offer at step 232. Since the trader no longer has a bid or offer inthe market, process 200 ends at step 234.

FIG. 6 is a flow diagram of a timing approach to control gamingaccording to the present invention. Process 300 begins at step 302 bystarting a trade-state timer. At this point, the trading system for aparticular item has entered a trade state. During this trade stateseveral events may occur. One event may be a request to cancel orreplace a current bid or offer at step 306. If this occurs, the traderwill be prevented from canceling or replacing the bid or offer, and apop-up window may be displayed on the trader's screen indicating that heor she cannot cancel or replace the bid or offer until the trade stateis over at step 308. A second event may be a request to submit a hit ortake at step 307. If this occurs, a second trader will be able to submita hit or take in response to the bid or offer at step 309. Then at step311, the trading system will reset the trade-state timer. A third eventmay be a request to submit a bid or offer at step 310. If this occurs, atrader will be able to submit a bid or offer at step 312. If the tradercurrently has a bid or offer in the market, submitting a new bid oroffer will not replace or cancel the existing bid or offer.

After step 308, 311, or 312, or directly after step 302 (if none of therequests indicated in steps 306, 307, and 310 are made), process 300moves to step 314 where the trading system determines whether thetrade-state timer has ended. If the trade-state timer has not ended,process 300 remains in the trade state to wait for a request to cancelor replace an order at step 306, a request to submit a hit or take atstep 307, a request to submit a bid or offer at step 311, or for thetimer to end at step 314. If the trade-state timer has ended, process300 moves to step 316 where the bid-offer timer starts. At this point,process 300 is in a bid-offer state. During the bid-offer state (e.g., 4seconds or any other suitable time period), one of several things canoccur. If process 300 receives a hit or lift response from a seller orbuyer, a trade will occur at the bid or offer price made during thetrade state at step 324. Process 300 will then end at step 326.

During the bid-offer state, process 300 can receive a request to cancelor replace an order at step 320. If this occurs, similar to the tradestate, the trader will be prevented from canceling or replacing theorder, and a pop-up window, or any other suitable method, may be used tocommunicate this message to the trader at step 322.

After step 322, or directly after step 316, process 300 may determinewhether the bid-offer timer has ended at step 328. If the timer has notended, process 300 may remain in the bid-offer state to wait for arequest to cancel or replace a bid or offer at step 320, for a hit orlift response at step 324, or for the timer to end at step 328. If thebid-offer timer has ended, process 300 may then receive a request tocancel or replace an order at step 330. If such a request is received,the bid or offer will be canceled and will be replaced by a new bid oroffer at step 332. Process 300 may then end at step 334.

Gaming may be controlled to prevent as well as to promote gaming. Gamingmay be promoted by creating liquidity in an illiquid market (e.g., bycontrolling and encouraging gaming to whatever degree the market willpermit). An example for increasing liquidity may be to take an illiquidsecurity, such as an old bond (e.g., 30 year United States Treasurybond), and permit gaming so that trades increase. The permitted sale maybe based on a sliding scale of various elements that are controlled. Thepermitted sale may also occur by permitting the trade to increase untila specific volume is attained, or by generally permitting gaming forspecific securities (such as the old bond) in illiquid markets.

Thus it is seen that systems and methods are provided to control gamingin electronic trading systems. One skilled in the art will appreciatethat the present invention can be practiced by other than the describedembodiments, which are presented for purposes of illustration and not oflimitation, and the present invention is limited only by the claimswhich follow.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method performed by at least one computingdevice coupled over a network to at least a workstation associated witha first trader and a workstation associated with a second trader, themethod comprising: receiving at the at least one computing device afirst order for an item from the workstation associated with the firsttrader; receiving at the at least one computing device a second orderfor the item from the workstation associated with the first trader;receiving at the at least one computing device a request to cancel thefirst order for the item; starting with the at least one computingdevice a cooling off period—based on receipt of the request to cancelthe first order and based on a difference between a price of the firstorder and a price of the second order being greater than a predeterminedamount; receiving at the at least one computing device, from theworkstation associated with the second trader, during the cooling offperiod, an order to buy or sell the item, the order from the secondtrader counter side to the first order and the second order from thefirst trader; and suspending with the at least one computing device theorder to buy or sell the item from the second trader, as a result of thebuy or sell order being received during the cooling off period, and fora period of time for the second trader to notice a change in the firstorder and the second order prices.
 2. The method of claim 1 comprisingcanceling with the at least one computing device the first order, thesecond order thereby replacing the first order.
 3. The method of claim 2comprising executing with the at least one computing device the order tobuy or sell the item against the second order after the cooling offperiod.
 4. The method of claim 3, comprising communicating with the atleast one computing device the price of the second order to theworkstation associated with the second trader, and receiving at the atleast one computing device a hit or lift from the workstation associatedwith the second trader after the cooling off period.
 5. The method ofclaim 1 comprising executing with the at least one computing device theorder to buy or sell the item against the second order withoutsuspending the order to buy or sell the item when the price differencebetween the first order and the second order is less than thepredetermined amount.
 6. The method of claim 1, wherein at least one ofthe first and the second orders are submitted during a period wherein atleast one of the first trader and the second trader has exclusivity. 7.The method of claim 1, wherein at least one of the first and the secondorders are submitted during a period wherein the first trader cannotcancel bids or offers.
 8. A trading system comprising at least onecomputing device coupled over a network to at least a workstationassociated with a first trader and a workstation associated with asecond trader, the at least one computing device comprising softwarethat when executed causes the at least one computing device to: receivea first order for an item from the workstation associated with a firsttrader; receive a second order for the item from the workstationassociated with a first trader; receive a request to cancel the firstorder for the item; start a cooling off period based on receipt of therequest to cancel the first order and when a difference between a priceof the first order and a price of the second order is greater than apredetermined amount; receive from the workstation associated with asecond trader, during the cooling off period, an order to buy or sellthe item, the order from the second trader counter side to at least oneof the first order and the second order from the first trader; andsuspend the order to buy or sell the item from the second trader, as aresult of the buy or sell order being received during the cooling offperiod, and for a period of time for the second trader to notice achange in the first order and the second order prices.
 9. The system ofclaim 8, the software when executed further causes the least onecomputing device to cancel the first order, the second order therebyreplacing the first order.
 10. The system of claim 9, the software whenexecuted further causes the at least one computing device to execute theorder to buy or sell the item against the second order after the coolingoff period.
 11. The system of claim 8, the software when executedfurther causes the at least one computing device to communicate theprice of the second order to the workstation associated with the secondtrader, and receive a hit or lift from the workstation associated withthe second trader after the cooling off period.
 12. The system of claim8, the software when executed further causes the at least one computingdevice to execute the order to buy or sell the item against the secondorder without suspending the order to buy or sell the item when theprice difference between the first order and the second order is lessthan the predetermined amount.
 13. The method of claim 8, wherein atleast one of the first and the second orders are submitted during aperiod wherein at least one of the first trader and the second traderhas exclusivity.
 14. The method of claim 8, wherein at least one of thefirst and the second orders are submitted during a period wherein thefirst trader cannot cancel bids or offers.
 15. A method performed by atleast one computing device coupled over a network to at least aworkstation associated with a first trader and a workstation associatedwith a second trader, the method comprising: receiving at the at leastone computing device a first order to trade an item; receiving at the atleast one computing device a second order to trade the item, the firstand second orders each submitted from the workstation associated withthe first trader and each specifying a price; receiving at the at leastone computing device a request to cancel or replace the first order;determining with the at least one computing device a difference betweenthe price of the first order and the price of the second order; startingwith the at least one computing device a cooling off period—based onreceipt of the request to cancel or replace the first order and when thedifference between the price of the first order and the price of thesecond order is greater than a predetermined amount; receiving at the atleast one computing device, from the workstation associated with secondtrader, during the cooling off period, an order to buy or sell the item,the order from the second trader counter side to at least one of thefirst order and the second order from the first trader; suspending withthe at least one computing device the order to buy or sell the item fromthe second trader, as a result of the buy or sell order being receivedduring the cooling off period, and for a period of time for the secondtrader to notice a change in the first order and the second orderprices; receiving at the at least one computing device a commandaccepting the second order from the second trader; and executing withthe at least one computing device the order to buy or sell the itemagainst the second order in response to the acceptance command.